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Monday, 12 December 2011

Schmutzli - the Swiss Bad Santa

Every country has its traditions and rituals and one of the more quirky and oddly satisfying of the Swiss Christmas season is Schmutzli.

2 Schmutzli are seen here on either side of SamiChlaus

Just
like Venom to Spiderman, Dr. Moriarty to Sherlock Holmes and Magneto to
Dr. Xavier, Schmutzli is a more sinister counter point to the good that
Santa represents.

The answer to how this tradition came about is
once again representative of another classic battle between Christianity
and paganism. Originally it was a pagan ritual called Perchten
which involved good spirits driving out the bad old spirits. With
Samichlaus taking the Christian "good" role Schmutzli some how managed
to evolve into the dark figure.

Samichlaus is not Santa Claus
however and the celebration of "St Nicolas Day"is on the 6th of
December, while both Christmas and St Nicolas Day both have the same
origins they take on different forms, with the latter having much more
in common with its original tradition of paganism than its
commercialised American brother.

What is personally appealing about
this tradition is the fact that it actually give children something to
fear at Christmas. No longer is the classic taunt "Santas' watching"
applicable, the phrase "Schmutzli is watching" has far more fear behind
it, and only rightly so, the black faced nemesis is associated with
stealing children, carries a broom of sticks with which to hit
misbehaving children and is even called Père Fouettard or Father 'Whip'
in the French speaking part of Switzerland.
Local teenagers have
even been known to dress up as groups of Schmutzli's and go around
implementing their own style of vigilante Christmas justice on younger
children.

All Christmas songs now have a new tune

You better watch out
You better not cry
Better not pout
I'm telling you why
Schmutzli is coming to town

He’s got a stick, And he'll whip you twice;
It doesn't matter if you're naughty or nice
Schmutzli is coming to town

He'll steal when you’re sleeping, He'll whip you when you’re awake
He knows if you’ve been bad or good, So run for goodness sake!
O! You better watch out! You better not cry
Better not pout, I’m telling you why
Schmutzli is coming to town

Sounds like excellent incentive for good behaviour from children to me and hey its a lot less scary than the German equivalent "Krampus" who looks like the very incarnation of Satan himself.